09/18/2025
I like to think I show up steady: the calm physician, the measured thinker. Yet the moments that truly reveal me are the ones when my mental fortitude feels thin and my spirit buckles under pressure.
We're told to, and I often say, "surrender," to let go of what we can't control.
But surrender without giving up is its own art.
Sometimes the injustices of the world make me want to rage: it feels like people get away with things, like effort doesn't count, like meaning frays.
My practice when the weight becomes unbearable is not avoidance. It's deliberate, structured struggle. I throw myself into physical tests, mud, cold water, climbing, weighted hikes, because they are honest.
They translate internal chaos into a measurable, finite problem I can meet. The result isn't triumph so much as reorientation: a breath, a laugh, a hand to someone else, a small restoration of balance.
We don't always need to fix or solve every problem that comes our way. Sometimes we need to move through it, carry it for a short stretch, and find the thread that ties us back to ourselves.
